The chairman Presidential Visitation Panel for Madibbo Adama University of Technology (MAUTECH) who is also the former vice chancellor of Benue State University (BSU), Professor David Ker, has stated the need for the federal government, ASUU and other university unions to think of working together to salvage the university system.
He stated this in an interview with journalists in Yola weekend after rounding up the assignment in the state. He expressed concern over the continuous disruption of academic activities in Nigerian universities as a result of disagreements between the government and the university unions and urged them to think of working together as partners in progress to salvage the system.
“Honestly, there are a lot of problems and challenges, but we also cannot hope to solve them in one year, two years or three years. First of all, it is important to understand what they are and then we can take them one by one. Sometimes there are disagreements between the staff unions on one hand and government as the employer at the other hand.
“This is natural that there will always be problems between the employer and the employees. Sometimes, it is as if these problems are endless but I believe with time, we will reach that level of sanity in our university system. But there is the need for government and ASUU to think of working together as partners if university system must be salvaged,” he said.
Professor Ker further throw his weight behind university’s autonomy saying that universities in the country should be allowed to teach what their Senate has approved for them to teach and be able to handle their finances which will go a long way to improve university education in Nigeria.
He said government is already present in the university through Universities Governing Council’s.
He argued that the governing council’s should be allowed to do their job for which they have been assigned, adding that TETFUND was the brain child of ASUU which government embraced.
